Apitherapy is the medicinal use of various products of Apis mellifera (the common honeybee) including raw honey, pollen, propolis, beeswax, royal jelly and venom. Various studies attribute antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative and anticancer potentiating properties to honey.
In China, for example, raw honey is applied to burns as an antiseptic and a pain killer. Recently, propolis has been identified as containing substances called caffeic esters that inhibit the development of precancerous changes in the colon of rats given a known carcinogen. Preparations from pieces of honeycomb containing pollen are reported to be successful for treating allergies and bee pollen is touted as an excellent food. This review focuses on related research materials about bee venom to treat chronic inflammatory painful illness.
Indeed, various forms of apitherapy have been used since ancient times. Ancient writers as diverse as Hesiod (800 BC), Aristophanes (450-388 BC), Varro (166-27 BC) and Columella (First Century AD) all wrote on the cultivation of the hive. Hippocrates (460-377 BC), the Father of Medicine, used it and call it Arcanum—a very mysterious remedy. Galan (131-201 AD), the Father of Experimental Physiology, mentioned it in his treatises on medicine. Charlemagne (742-814 AD) is said to have had himself treated with bee stings. The Koran (XVI:71) refers to bee venom in the following terms: “There proceeded from their bellies a liquor wherein is a medicine for men.” For apitherapy and the scientific understanding of bees, real progress began about 100 years ago when physician Phillip Terc of Austria advocated the deliberate use of bee stings in his work: Report about a Peculiar Connection Between the Beestings and Rheumatism.
Today's proponents of apitherapy cite the benefits of bee venom and other bee derived products for alleviating chronic pain and for treating many ailments including various rheumatic diseases involving inflammation and degeneration of connective tissue (e.g., several types of arthritis), neurological disease (migraine, peripheral neuritis, chronic low back pain), autoimmune disease (multiple sclerosis, lupus) and dermatological conditions (eczema, psoriasis, herpes virus infections). In contrast, interest in bees has been sporadic in conventional medicine, focusing mainly on two areas unrelated to the therapeutic uses proposed above. These areas are: (i) the danger of hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylactic shock, from the sting of insects of the genus Apis; (ii) the use of bee venom itself as immunotherapy for allergic reaction to such stings, especially to prevent life-threatening anaphylactic reactions in adults.
Despite the promise of apitherapy in alternative medicine circles, for the reasons discussed above as well as the absence of standardized bee venom preparations and limited protocols for bee venom's effective use, the application of bee venom in mainstream medicine has languished. In addition to the foregoing, apitherapy is often painful. The use of actual bees for the administration of bee venom can be dangerous and difficult to control. It is also difficult for people to overcome their aversion to insects and being stung. Even if administered by less painful techniques, such as by acupuncture, bee venom itself causes a unique combination of pain, burning and irritation. Such therapy can leave one asking whether the treatment is worse than the condition. In view of the foregoing, there remains a need for standardized formulations and methods for administering apitherapy to patients in need of such therapies. Methods which avoid the use of actual bees and which can reduce the pain associated with apitherapy are particularly desirable. It is to these problems that the present invention is addressed.